Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

The Pregnancy Diary: A Little Psychic

January 21st 2008: I'm still pregnant.

I try not to believe in things like psychic occurrences. Even if there is an inkling of truth in it? In San Francisco and other Artistic Communities), People have a tendency to bash their "Voodoo Vibrations" over your head like a big old knotty pine stick.

Yes. I think I'm a little psychic, says your friend with the never-ending burning sage and wind chimes. The house smells like dead flowers and if you could find anything that resembles a dead animal in the freezer from a non Urban Market Environment? It is by complete accident.

They are horrified...just horrified that they picked up a sausage patty instead of the farm-raised wheat ones.

How you can grow wheat sausages on a farm is beyond me. But they tell you that anyway. It takes just like meat, you know.

No, it doesn't taste like meat. It tastes like tofu. It tastes like wheat. It tastes like ground up carrots and beets in a glue-like paste to keep the form of a hotdog.

You are psychic, huh? Do you really know what I'm thinking right now? More importantly: Do you really *want to know what I'm thinking*?

When I have done Murder Mystery Shows (That 4th quarter annual meeting dinner at some retreat your company makes you go to and you are forced to go to this dinner and in turn forced to deal with some strange interactive show with people in wacky gear and then forced to sit with one of these character actors throughout the entire dinner at your table when you wish you could just talk about that accounting flow chart instead?), I used to do a character called LaWanda. She was a psychic.

Big African dashiki with the turban, big rings and bad, bad Jamaican Accent. This is my parlor trick. It takes nothing to guess what is going on with people's lives. And it is not guessing. It is simple physical police work disguised as theater.

You ask them if they would like a palm reading:

- Always take the left hand. Check for wedding bands. See how expensive looking the band is. You can also tell the ones who are trying to mack at this event as you can check for marks where the "Band used to be."

- How soft or rough are the hands? Check for age spots, sunburn etc. How well manicured are the hands.

- You look at their face and do a sweeping motion around their face to get them to laugh. Why?You are checking out the face. How many wrinkles. Laugh lines. Lack of sleep around the eyes. You are checking out the teeth while they are laughing. Are they capped? Is there gold in those hills? Are they natural teeth? Do they smoke? When they are laughing...you can generally tell how much they are *drinking* by their breath.

- Stand back from them and hold your arms out with your eyes half closed. How physically fit are they? How are they dressed?  How are they holding themselves? (Arms crossed in front of them. Hands in pocket. Standing and posing...etc...are they in a passive or aggressive stance?)

From there you can just fill in the blank on lives. By the time I have read the fourth person's palm, I generally never have to approach anyone blindly. Word gets around. They seriously think that their company has hired a real psychic.

People wish to believe. When I tell them I'm just an actor with a SAG-AFTRA card at the end of it all...they still will say I have some sort of gift.

Yes sir. The gift of doing Drama Therapy in Prisons and then watching a lot of Bill Kurtis cable shows. But you don't say that.

You just let them continue to believe.

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I'm at home getting my work together this day and my phone rings and caller ID pops up. It is my friend Tiffany Turner.

I have known Tiffany since the 4th Grade, making her the oldest friend that I have. We have done so much together. We have been through marriages, her children, girl lunches, laughing and joking, divorces, separations, miscarriages and variants of everything. She even puts up with the idea that I'm not religious. And in turn, I .

She is the calm friend to my frenetic.

We also are not big on calling each other. It is a once in a while check-in. The yearly visit with her coming to wherever we are in the world. Seeing how the kids are doing. Seeing how our health is.

From out of the blue. There is her name on my caller ID. I just stare at it. I just found out that I was pregnant.

Me: Tiffany!
Her: Hey Girl! I was just calling...because I was really thinking about you all of a sudden. I'm surprised you're home.
Me: (blurting) I'm pregnant!
Her: See! I KNEW there was a reason I should be calling!

She does not own one piece of sage. I have never seen a wind chime at her place. Her house smells like orange glow! She knows what incisors are for: Tearing and eating meat.

And as far as I know, she is not a big A&E Bill Kurtis fan.

Hans called on the other line. I tell him I'm on the phone with Tiffany. He asks if she called about me being pregnant under the assumption that I called her first. When I told him no, he just said: Wow. That is really psychic of her.

If there is any truth in being psychic, I think the real ones are not the ones who sit in the lotus position and listen to a loop of George Harrison's Guitar/Sitar licks.

I think the real ones do not have the Afro Centric turbans and bare feet whose non-stop continual Blessings to you make you want to bless your foot somewhere in the folds around the ass of the flowing Afro Centric Robes.

I think being "a bit psychic" entails some history of the person who you are being psychic about. A real connection.

That is, what I would *like to believe.*

It could just be dumb goddamn luck.

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